


Frozen Time

by Scribblue



Category: Milo Murphy's Law
Genre: Dakavendish - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 19:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30043749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scribblue/pseuds/Scribblue
Summary: After they're stripped of their titles and banned from time travel permanently, Dakota no longer has a way to save Cavendish's life. He's taken extra care to ensure that Cavendish stays alive, but the hands of fate have different ideas...***This is a completed standalone fic, and serves as an alternate ending to Milo Murphy's Law. Artwork included!
Relationships: Balthazar Cavendish & Vinnie Dakota, Balthazar Cavendish/Vinnie Dakota
Comments: 11
Kudos: 24





	Frozen Time

There was a separate Dakota for each time that he lost Cavendish— crushed, busted up, ran over, the list goes on and on, but in some twisted sense it got easier each time. Dakota became numb to the sight of his partner, his boyfriend, his fiancé being ripped from his arms. Dying before his time.

Time used to be on Dakota's side; a quick rewind, another Dakota, and everything went back to normal. At least, as normal as it could get while playing God with the space-time continuum. His circle of life looked more like a figure 8, starting over at the beginning every time Cavendish reached the end. Now, stripped of their titles and banned from time travel permanently, infinity had flattened into a single precarious line. How long could Cavendish be expected to balance?

"Dear?"

Dakota felt a hand on his shoulder, a gentle shake. He jolted from his distant thoughts to find Cavendish kneeling in front of him, brow creased with worry that only eased once Dakota reunited with reality. Cavendish sat back on his haunches and gestured at the game board. "It's your turn."

Game night. Monopoly. Right. Cavendish even had the rulebook pulled up to avoid the 'doubles debacle', as he called it. Dakota just called it cheating.

"Sorry," he said. "I guess I was just...thinking."

"Penny."

"Oh, it's nothing important." Dakota took the dice in hand and gave them a little shake, feeling the soft weight shift against his palm. Each day felt like a roll of the dice, and the odds were no longer stacked in his favor. He let them loose onto the game board and watched them clatter into a combined four.

Cavendish was watching intently. "You know, Dakota, you're a terrible liar. Almost worse than me."

That earned a chuckle. It was a fair statement— Dakota almost never lied, only omitted the truth, and his tone usually gave him away. Cavendish, however, couldn't even call in sick for work without Block calling bullshit.

Dakota didn't, however, feel like ruining Cavendish's mood. "I'm...thinking about our mission tomorrow."

Cavendish released a haughty huff. "Our 'mission'," he echoed with distaste. "Calling our assignments 'missions' is like calling stale dumpster bread a four-course meal. Another day of picking up human waste with no hope of actually putting our skills to good use, doubtless."

It seemed Cavendish had accepted the omission of the truth, and Dakota was happy to change the subject. It's not like he wasn't thinking about their assignment, at least tangentially; each mission provided fresh opportunities for his partner's untimely demise. But it was easier to listen to Cavendish talk about their lack of potential than it was to share his own thoughts of potential disaster.

* * *

_Canon Timeline: Abducting Murphy's Law_

How did it all go so wrong so fast? What went wrong? Why?

Dakota mused over all of these unanswerable questions while nursing a splitting headache at their fold-out table. The dingy shell of an apartment was empty, save him and his thoughts and Cavendish's stuffed teddy. It felt much warmer when Cavendish shared his presence.

Today, he had woken up alone in a party-city costume, sitting on the roof of their van. All he knew was that Cavendish had used the memory device on him, though for what reason he couldn't be sure. And that, by extension, Cavendish was gone. Cavendish was _alone_. That thought didn't sit right. It coated his insides like a dissolved pill, turning his stomach sour.

For so long, Dakota had devoted every waking hour to Cavendish. He was the pair of eyes that looked both ways before Cavendish crossed the street, the one that tested his food for fear of poison. He had even convinced Cavendish to let him inject his testosterone every week, in addition to doing his own. Of course, Cavendish has always tutted, protested, shrugged off Dakota's worries, but never flat out rejected him; his patience had always run deeper than his gently scolding mouth. Now, Dakota would give anything to be the subject of Cavendish's reprimands.

After all...how could he protect Cavendish from himself if he didn't even know where he was?

* * *

_Canon Timeline: Milo In Space_

_[Timeskip—all other canon events are the same]_

The ice shattered in a waterfall of frozen debris, and Dakota dropped his wrench just in time to catch Cavendish as his legs buckled. The two of them sank to the ground, Dakota cradling Cavendish against his thighs and cupping his head in a trembling hand.

He examined Cavendish as though he'd never laid eyes on him before, and as if he never planned to look away—which wasn't far from the truth. The crater left in his wake, the gaps in Dakota's memory and the empty space in their bed, it left him desperate to savor every second moving forward. To kiss every patch of exposed skin. To stick to his partner like a tongue to freezing metal.

He only exercised an ounce of restraint given that Cavendish was trying to tell him something.

"The aliens..." he said, tightening his grip on Dakota's lapels.

The aliens were the least of Dakota's worries. His head swarmed with fresh questions, a months worth of anxieties that had finally reached a crescendo of blind panic. "You're freezing," he said. "I...I have to get you to a hospital or something."

Cavendish's brows knitted together, though he couldn't hold the expression for long. The ice seemed to have pulled his skin taut, slowed down his motor functions to only the barest essentials. "They're coming for Milo. Again!"

As if on cue, the structure began to rumble underfoot, announcing the arrival of some new complications.

The rest of the crew ran outside, and Cavendish tried to stand, but Dakota easily coaxed him back into a supine position. "I'm serious, you have to go to a hospital, or, or, something— look at you, you're blue all over."

"Oh please, I'm right as rain." His chattering teeth did little to validate his words. "Besides— I didn't come all this way to be useless."

"Damn it, Cav, what use are you if you're dead?"

It came out harsher than Dakota intended, and he couldn't tell if Cavendish took it exceptionally well or if it would have expended too much energy to indicate otherwise. In either case, he didn't respond.

"I just...I was really worried about you, y'know?" Dakota continued. "You mind-erased me and then just...just...left. How am I supposed to react to that?"

Cavendish's expression softened. "I'm sorry. I know it wasn't fair to you, but—trust me when I tell you it was for your own protection."

"Yeah, but I'm the one that's supposed to protect _you_ , I can't do that if I don't even know where you are."

Cavendish reached up and cupped Dakota's cheek in his palm. "I know." It was quiet, nearly a whisper. He leaned forward and Dakota met his lips halfway, the resulting chill coursing between them like electricity.

When they pulled away, Dakota leaned back and wrestled off his jacket. "Here, at least—at least take this, alright?" With the help of a supportive shoulder Cavendish leaned forward and allowed Dakota to swaddle him in the soft jersey. "God, you look like a Cavcicle."

Cavendish laughed, though it came out as more of a cough. And then it devolved into a definite cough, shaking his thin frame with every guttural heave. When the fit subsided he pulled the jacket tighter around his shoulders and slumped against Dakota's chest. "I've come so far, my dear. Everything I've worked for...it's here, in this very craft. And it's out there, probably abducting an innocent child as we speak."

"Oh, that ship has sailed," Dr. Doofenshmirtz said. "Quite literally!"

The two of them turned towards the entrance, where the rest of the group—save Milo—were filing back in. Grim expressions, the lot of them. Though Dr. D didn't seem to get the memo.

"They got Milo," Dakota said, more of a statement than a question. Nonetheless, it was confirmed by remorseful nods.

"Alright, that settles it," Cavendish said. "Dakota, help me up. We're going after them." He didn't wait for Dakota's complaints before using his shoulder as a brace and pushing himself to his feet. Dakota mirrored him, offering an arm as Cavendish started to sway on his heels.

"Hold it right there. You're not going anywhere but—"

Cavendish dismissed the remark with a wave of his hand. "There'll be plenty of time for a hospital visit when we get back."

"If."

Cavendish frowned. "No need to be macabre, dearest. A couple laps around the bridge and I'll be defrosted in no time. Besides—" He reached into his breast pocket and produced a folded-up piece of paper, which he held up like a glass of wine toasting to their success. "I've been working on decoding some of this scrap-heap's secrets. You'll need me on board if we have any hope of getting it up and running."

* * *

_Canon Timeline: Sphere and Loathing in Outer Space_

Cavendish put on a good show, Dakota had to give him that; walking around the bridge offering advice and pressing the occasional button, speaking with an authoritarian tone. But his guise of togetherness was paper thin. Dakota could see it in every hitched step, every stutter induced by chattering teeth, every tug on his borrowed jacket. Cavendish couldn't contain the shivers that ransacked his body, nor did the color return to his face. He looked pale as a ghost with blue-tinged extremities.

Dakota wasn't the only one worried. His companions did their part to try and get Cavendish to slow down, rest, or even just admit that something was wrong, all to the same effect. Dr. D figured out how to turn up the heat and it seemed to affect everyone except Cavendish; within minutes they were all sweating pit-stains into their clothes, while Cavendish didn't emit so much as a bead of condensation.

So, for the extent of their voyage, Dakota remained a shadow. He never left Cavendish's side, offering helping hands and worried glances. Cavendish tutted, but didn't deny the help. Regardless of his can-do attitude, there must have been some part of him that understood or shared the anxiety.

It didn't help when they vacuumed up a stray alien from space, under the guise that it was Milo. He was, in reality, a shapeshifter named Loab, ejected from his mother-ship during a bad case of Murphy's Law. When his story ended and he laid eyes on Cavendish, his casual demeanor fell away, replaced with wide-eyed panic.

"Oh, no—oh no, no, no," Loab said, rushing to Cavendish's side and circling him in a couple quick laps. He inspected his condition with worrying intensity. "You got caught in the cryo-beam, didn't you?" He didn't let Cavendish answer before adding, "How long?"

"Well, yes, and um...I don't...actually know." Cavendish turned to Dakota. "I wasn't exactly counting the days, I...can't say I was thinking at all."

"At most, a week," Melissa chimed in. "You weren't frozen last we saw you and that was about a week ago."

"A week?" Loab shrieked. His tone sent chills up Dakota's spine, as though he had been encased in ice in Cavendish's place. Loab took a moment to compose himself, seeming to note the panic levels rising. "I mean...um...no big, really, it's just...well, that particular security measure is only meant to hold captives for short periods of time, long enough to transport the offender to a cell."

"And...what about long term exposure?" Dakota ventured, unsure if he wanted the answer to that question.

Loab was no longer attempting to hold eye contact, in fact he now seemed intent on avoiding it. "Yes, well, you see...long term exposure is especially...harmful...to bodies that are incapable of shape-shifting."

"Harmful?" Cavendish said, his voice betraying the fear he had once so diligently repressed. "Harmful how?"

Loab picked up Cavendish's hand and inspected his fingertips—as blue as the alien's natural skin. "I'm afraid without proper treatment...your body simply won't thaw. The beam has permanently lowered your internal temperature to dangerous levels."

"Well, we can fix it, right?" Dakota said, taking the alien by his shoulders. "We're headed to your planet—they have the cure there?"

"Right! A...cure. of course. I'm sure it's, uh, probably not too late!" He offered a nervous laugh that did little to reassure. "Now can you let go of me? Please? I have a thing about personal space—"

Dakota released him. His blind panic was winding down into a spiral of numb disbelief and hopelessness. He felt a hand on his arm and turned to Cavendish, who offered a smile that could do little to stifle the mutual concern.

"You heard the good chap," he said. "I'll be fine."

Dakota only wished he could believe him.

* * *

_On Octalia_

"Milo's already out there somewhere," Zack said.

A hush fell over their group. Even without saying it, the consensus was clear; what little hope they previously harbored had been dashed against the ruins of Octalia. Standing outside their ship on an alien planet that'd been ravaged worse than the plant-based apocalypse of their own creation, with no time and no Milo and no do-overs...it wasn't hard to interpret the silence.

"Milo is the chosen one," Loab said. "He's the one that's going to fix all of this!"

Cavendish tutted. "He's a child."

Dakota stared out at the alien debris swirling in the air, caught in the vortex of a skyscraper-sized sphere. He would much rather have been sweeping the wreckage from parking lots, with Cavendish griping by his side; now, Cavendish was leaning all his weight against him because he didn't have the strength to stand on his own. "He's right, Loab— we can't wait for Milo to fix this."

"Right, your...predicament." Loab looked Cavendish up and down before clearing his throat. "There's a medical center nearby, but..."

"But what?"

He pointed in the distance and Dakota followed his gaze, towards the pink sphere that was throwing houses around like a juggling act. "It's too close to the sphere of calamity," Loab said. "It must be destroyed by now, or at least abandoned; you're better off waiting for Milo to—"

"We don't have a choice." Milo was out there facing the sphere of calamity alone— if he was brave enough to lead the charge, it was all Dakota could do to follow it.

Cavendish tried to brush off Dakota's urgency, but his words of reassurance could barely pass through the chatters. "Dakota, really, I'm—"

"Save your energy, Cav," Dakota said, scooping him up at the knees and cradling him against his chest. Dakota wondered if Cavendish could feel the incessant beating of his heart, or if his body had become too numb to feel anything at all. A tap on his arm brought his attention to Melissa.

"Hey, be careful," she said.

"Yeah," Zack chimed in. "Bring back both of them, if you can."

"Thanks, kids," Dakota said, indicating the two of them with a grateful nod of his head. "I'll, uh...I'll do my best."

As he turned and ran towards the very thing threatening to destroy Cavendish's hope for survival, he only prayed his best was good enough.

Dakota clutched Cavendish as tight as he could against his body and kept his head low, but each step brought a new predicament; floods, falling signs, crumbling buildings, flying manhole covers, exploding vehicles; not even first-hand experience with Murphy's Law could have prepared him for this level of chaos.

He kept moving regardless, fueled by his all-consuming need to keep Cavendish alive. To cheat death just one more time. To prove fate wrong for good.

Fate wasn't playing by his rules, though. Dakota's stomach dropped as he skidded to a halt in front of the crumbled remains of the medical center, stripped down to little more than it's foundation. To his right, the sphere loomed— almost double the size it originally appeared, clawing at its immediate vicinity with invisible hands of destruction. Bending the world to its will.

Dakota felt the wind picking up around him, threatening to consume them both, and couldn't find it in his heart to be afraid. All of his deepest fears were already coming true, in the form of Cavendish's waning energy; neither of them had anything left to give. Dakota sunk to his knees.

"I...I couldn't..." The sentence got lodged in his throat.

"Milo."

He looked down at Cavendish, shaken out of his stupor. "I'm Dakota," he said. "Is your memory—?"

"No," Cavendish said, pointing a trembling finger. "Milo!"

And then, Dakota saw it: an unconscious Milo Murphy, bruised and battered, sandwiched between dangerously heavy chunks of rubble. "Oh my god— Hang in there, kid!" Dakota shouted, letting Cavendish slide out of his arms and making a dive for the pile. He clawed at it and the concrete clawed back, tearing strips of skin from his palms. But he didn't stop until the boy was uncovered.

"Milo!"

This time, it was a woman's voice. Dakota whipped around to face a taller, mauve-skinned alien, surrounded by a small group of lackeys. She looked official, though her status was the least of Dakota's worries.

"We need medical assistance over here," Dakota called. "Please!"

In a moment they were by his side, one of the aliens transforming into a stretcher that Dakota helped lay Milo on top of.

"Ma'am, my fiancé—you have to help him, too, I...the cryo-beam..."

The purple alien followed Dakota's desperate gestures towards Cavendish, still sitting amid the rubble with a glazed look in his eyes. Her own expression was hard to read. "The cryo-beam," she repeated, seemingly to herself. "We will do...everything we can. First, we must get away from the sphere of calamity."

She instructed her lackeys to create a second stretcher to accommodate Cavendish, and once both patients were loaded up the crew took off at a quick pace. Dakota fell in beside the evident commander. He considered asking her if they would be alright, but he feared he already knew the answer; it was a hunch he didn't dare confirm.

* * *

The Commander's private medical chambers were colorful yet sterile, made up of unfamiliar metals tinted blue and purple that did little to comfort the crew's shared state of mind. For Dakota, all it did was give him a headache. He paced the length of the waiting area until the Commander returned and waved the group inside. He was the first to follow.

"Milo's healing swiftly thanks to our technology," the Commander said, gesturing to a cot in the corner of the room that Milo was draped across.

He was swaddled in casts that hung from straps on the ceiling and wrapped up in bandages everywhere else, but his eyes were bright as ever. He smiled when he saw his friends enter. "Hi guys!"

"Milo!" Zach and Melissa said in unison, rushing to his side.

Dakota forced a smile and inclined his head towards Milo, who offered a stiff wave in return. The clinician that was tending to his wounds put a hand on his cast and gently lowered his arm back down.

"Another minute and he'll be good as new," the Commander said, turning to Dakota. Her stoic demeanor seemed to flicker, just for a moment. When she spoke again, she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone only intended for Dakota's ears. "Your partner, however...well. Maybe you should see for yourself."

She drew back the partition that separated Cavendish's cot from Milo's. He was strung up with IV's similar to that on Earth, though they were pumping a strange orange liquid through his veins. A legion of computer monitors manned by multi-colored aliens surrounded him, relaying data that Dakota couldn't parse.

He inched closer to Cavendish, who acknowledged his entrance with a feeble smile and an outstretched hand that Dakota readily accepted. Cavendish's skin was still ice-cold and ransacked by tremors that traveled through Dakota's arm.

"How are you feeling?" Dakota asked, voice cracking in the process. He tried to play it off with a cough.

Cavendish squeezed Dakota's hand, gently, just enough that Dakota could register it. "Oh, never better." His shivers were so pervasive that he struggled to get the words out. "You know me, dear."

"There's no easy way to say this." The Commander stepped inside the partition and slid the faux door closed behind her, facing the two of them with an expression chiseled from stone. "I think it's best if the two of you receive the news...together."

It was Dakota's turn to squeeze Cavendish's hand, though he eased up when it garnered a wince. "What news?"

The Commander waved away the doctors that were manning Cavendish's station, and waited until they had disappeared behind the partition to let out a long breath. "I'm not good with these types of things— I guess I'm just going to say it, yeah? Even technology as advanced as ours has...limitations. Broken bones are a fairly straightforward procedure, but internal permafrost...even our top specialists have been unable to reverse the effects."

"But _you_ created the problem," Dakota said, untapped fear and anger suddenly bubbling to the surface. "It was your safety precaution, how could you not have the cure for it? Why can't we just pile on the blankets and let him sweat it out?"

She shook her head. "The cryo-beam utilizes a different type of ice than the kind you're used to on Earth. It's perfectly safe for short-term use, but...well, unless you have the proper anatomy to reform your molecular structure after long-term exposure..." she trailed off, seemingly lost in thought. When she resurfaced, she pointed her attention to Cavendish, whose calm expression hadn't yet wavered. "The ice particles have invaded your bloodstream and bonded with your internal organs. There's no safe way to extract them, now."

Cavendish absorbed this information quietly. "How long?"

She frowned. "At the rate your condition is currently progressing...minutes. Five, ten, it's...hard to tell for sure."

A sob clawed its way up Dakota's throat, thwarting his attempt to stifle it with his free hand.

The Commander placed a tentacle on his shoulder. "I'll, uh...give you two some space." She stepped around the partition and closed it behind her, giving the illusion of a private room.

For a few moments, Dakota couldn't even bear to meet Cavendish's gaze. He stared down at the tile through blurry eyes and tried to force back the hiccups squeezing his diaphragm.

"Dakota."

Cavendish's voice was frail, weak, shaky, but it cut through the silence like a knife. Dakota finally turned towards him; somewhere underneath his paper-white skin, blue-tinted extremities, prominent veins and red eyes, there he was—the man with which Dakota had fallen madly in love. The spark of a man Dakota could never bear to leave behind.

"How are you so calm?" Dakota whispered.

"Sit with me, dearest."

He complied, perching at the edge of Cavendish's cot. It creaked in protest.

Cavendish drew in a raggedy breath. "Do you know why I refused to go to the hospital back home? Why I insisted on attending this voyage?"

Dakota could only shake his head.

"When you busted me out of the ice...I felt it. I felt...something. Something so intense I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to overcome it." Cavendish took a moment to collect himself. The words didn't come easy though his chattering teeth, or through his seemingly unstable grip on consciousness; his eyelids fluttered like they were too heavy to keep open. "I didn't want to die on Earth as a nobody. I wanted my last moments to be spent doing what I love most—fighting for the greater good, with you."

Dakota shivered in time with Cavendish, his whole body ransacked with emotions far too big to contain. They got stuck in his throat, set his chest to heaving and his lower lip to trembling. "But it's not fair. It's too soon."

Cavendish managed a gentle smile that more closely resembled a wince, eyes creased and mouth twitching at the ends. "Hey, I'm Cavendish," he said. "What are you gonna do?"

"Don't do that to me. Don't use my own words against me." The tears flowed freely now, trailing salty lines down his face and congealing at his chin.

Cavendish gently brushed a stray droplet away with his thumb. "Not even on my dying breath?"

Dakota folded his hand over Cavendish's, holding his cold fingers against his cheek. "Especially not then," he said. "Not when I can't go back and fix this."

Cavendish's smile deepened, though his own tears threatened to fall— they crystallized in the corners of his eyes like bittersweet snowflakes. "Oh, my dearest Dakota. You've already given me the gift of a hundred borrowed lifetimes; the fact that I got to spend them all with you is more than I could ever ask for."

Dakota found a short laugh somewhere among the tears, a laugh of disbelief, of shock, the kind that can barely be categorized as anything more than a sharp exhale. "I wish I could have given you more."

"Yes...you always did spoil me." With some effort, he inclined his head towards the false wall. "You know, there are three kids back there that are gonna need you to look out for them now, Dakota."

"I will. I promise." It came out as little more than a hoarse whisper.

"I know you will, dearest. You're good at that."

Dakota leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on Cavendish's lips, letting it linger just long enough for Dakota's lips to numb from the cold. He pulled away slow. "I'm not ready to say goodbye."

"Oh, my dearest Dakota. In some ways, we've been practicing for this since the day we met. You've already said goodbye more times than anyone should have to." His gaze grew distant. "Besides... there are worse ways to go. Worse ways...I've gone. In fact, I...I'm starting to feel rather warm."

Dakota felt Cavendish's hand relaxing, finger brushing against his cheek as his arm slowly lowered. "Cav?"

Cavendish drew in one last trembling breath and seemed to deflate as he exhaled, arm growing heavy and eyes glossing over. The machine he was connected to emitted one long, slow beep, and all at once the floodgates burst. Dakota let out a guttural sob, burying his tear-soaked face in Cavendish's chest.

That's where he stayed, sobbing into the soft green fabric of Cavendish's vest and still holding on to the hand that could no longer feel his loving embrace, until he felt another hand on his shoulder. He leaned back to see Milo, already free of his casts, followed by Dr. D, Melissa, and Zack. None of them said anything; there wasn't much to be said. They just crowded around Dakota, around Cavendish's body, and let their quiet tears speak for themselves.

* * *

_Three Hours Later_

A pervasive numbness fell over the group as they faced the reality of their next task, the one that brought them to Octalia in the first place; the Sphere of Calamity. _Orgaluth's_ Sphere of Calamity. Dakota had nothing to contribute to the intel meeting, and no one seemed to blame him. He sat apart from the group and watched his friends try to scrabble together a game plan, while the world seemed to fade around him. Orgaluth's sphere felt like the least of their problems, despite its expanding path of destruction. He couldn't bring himself to care.

When the meeting adjourned, Milo excused himself out to the hall for a few minutes to "clear his head". Dakota gave the kid a minute, before worry overrode his own hundred-yard stare. He forced himself out of his chair and trailed after him.

Dakota found Milo perched on a bench in the hallway, staring down at his swinging legs with an uncharacteristically contemplative expression. Dakota had never seen Milo look so upset; for a kid prone to the level of disaster that usually followed him around, he was typically quick to bounce back.

Dakota took a seat on the bench. Neither of them said a word for a few extended seconds, and Milo was the first to break the silence.

"Dakota?"

"What's on your mind, bud?"

Milo twisted his hands together. "Do you think if I hadn't been there...you know, what with Murphy's law and everything...Do you think Cavendish...?"

Dakota grabbed Milo's arm and gave him a firm shake. "Hey, hey, hey. Whatever you're thinking, cut it out. You're too young to put that kind of blame on yourself."

Milo still wouldn't meet Dakota's eyes, but Dakota could see them welling up. Glistening in the fluorescent light. "But...bad stuff happens around me—because of me—all the time. Maybe if I hadn't been in the room, he could've..."

"Yeah, and if I had found Cavendish earlier, we wouldn't be having this conversation," Dakota said. His harsh tone surprised even himself.

Milo tilted his head. "Dakota...do... _you_ blame yourself?"

Yes.

"No." He released a long breath. "Maybe. Listen, Milo, sometimes this kind of thing just...happens. Trust me, I've spent most of my adult life trying to reverse the hands of time, and sometimes...well, sometimes you just can't."

His words lingered in the air like cheap perfume. Milo seemed to absorb it, process it. Dakota could almost see the gears whirring in his head. Slowly, he met Dakota's eyes. "What happens if I can't fix Orgaluth?"

Dakota considered him. A young reflection of himself, a fragile child with the weight of a world on his back. "Listen, I'll, uh...I'll tell you what." He wrapped his arm around Milo's shoulders and pulled him into a lopsided hug. "Regardless of what happens out there, I promise: as soon as we get back on Earth, we're gonna go get celebratory milkshakes."

This brought a hesitant smile to Milo's lips, however fleeting. "But...Dakota, Octalia is counting on me. What is there to celebrate if I can't do it?"

"Milo, the milkshake isn't about whether or not you fix everything. It's a celebration of doing the best you could."

"Hmm." Milo looked back down at his fidgeting fingers. "Well, in that case, I think I'd like that."

"Yeah?" Dakota ruffled his hair with a gentle noogie, earning another smile. "Yeah, me too, kid."

* * *

_Epilogue_

Cavendish was buried on the island of Dakota's. A fitting resting place, surrounded by the very people—the very person—who tried so desperately to keep him alive. The crater left by Cavendish's absence was felt by each and every Dakota, but particularly the one that held him as the final lifeline severed.

Dakota found himself visiting the island often, kneeling in front of his partner's grave, retelling the events of the Sphere of Calamity—the way that Milo figured out how to disperse Orgaluth's Law, and the milkshakes they got afterwards. He left out the part about Cavendish's funeral, and the blanket of grief that seemed to smother each person that ever had the honor of knowing him; Dakota didn't want Cavendish to worry.

In some ways, Orgaluth's reintegration into society reminded him of how he cushioned the blow of those continual deaths by creating more and more Dakota's. Spreading the bad feelings thin so that no singular person had to bear the pain. Though, in his case, it seemingly had postponed the inevitable...he hoped that wasn't the case with Orgaluth.

And he also hoped that somewhere, somehow, Cavendish knew that if given the option, Dakota would do everything over a hundred more times.

Just to share one more moment of frozen time.


End file.
